Part 6 (1/2)

'But when I got back,' he went on, 'I found a great change in the settlement. Some had taken up arms on the side of the people; some had enlisted with the King's men. I and several others could not think it was right to fight on either side. Finally they came an' burned our houses, an' drove off our stock, so we had to flee.'

'What are your plans for the future?' I asked.

'Some o' them here'--he waved his hand over the group of hardy, honest-looking farmers--'have been talkin' o' goin' to--what's the name o' the place?' he said, turning to those who stood behind him.

'Nova Scotia,' several said at once.

'Aye, Nova Scotia. That's it. There's peace there, they say, an'

plenty o' better lan' than what we've had here on the hillsides. Most of us have about made up our minds to go there.'

'Well done,' broke in Duncan Hale at this; 'for myself I'd rather be there on two meals a day under the flag of the King than living as a lord here among traitors, rebels and cut-throats.'

At this a few of the crowd hurrahed and pressed closer. They listened attentively for some time, as Duncan told them of the new land in the north to which their minds had already turned. As I looked on this group of rough, plain men eagerly listening to the schoolmaster, as I marked their hard hands and weather-beaten faces, as I heard them cheer the King's name, it came to me that it was not the cultured and refined only who were with the King. The bone and sinew of the country, as well as the brain and learning of it, were united in their loyalty to the cause that was growing dearer to me every day. The siege of Boston dragged slowly and painfully on. Weeks slid into months, and still no decided advantage was gained by either side. There were times when we heard that it would be useless to go to either Canada or Nova Scotia, for these already had been invaded and conquered. All communication by land was cut off, and closer and closer about the city were drawn the lines of the besiegers. English s.h.i.+ps kept coming and going, but gradually it began to dawn upon me that Boston must be given up.

The winter was wearing towards spring of the year 1776. The condition of things in Boston was far from comfortable. It was eight months since we had left our home in Cambridge. Almost all who sympathised with the besiegers had left the city, but it was still much overcrowded. The fleet lay in the harbour, but the supply s.h.i.+ps from England came less and less regularly. Food began to be scarce and dear. The trade of busy and prosperous Boston languished almost to nothing. A spirit of grumbling discontent seized the soldiers. The heart of the Loyalists sank very low. Drunkenness and disorder, crime and confusion, were spreading.

It was during these dull, heavy days when even my mother's brave spirit had almost deserted her, when even Doctor Canfield found it hard to be cheerful, and when I was feeling particularly depressed, that a new hope suddenly entered my life. For some time my sister Caroline had been endeavouring to turn my mind inward upon myself. An experience quite unlooked for lent her strange and powerful a.s.sistance.

She had cautioned me again and again not to expose myself to danger from the enemy. Several sh.e.l.ls thrown by the besiegers had been bursting in the city lately, and had done considerable damage.

'Be careful, Roger,' Caroline said to me on leaving home one day for my usual walk about the city: 'How dreadful it would be both for us and yourself if anything should happen to you.'

As I walked I could not help recalling the words, 'How dreadful for yourself if anything should happen to you.'

Did my sister really think I was unprepared for death? I had heard her pray earnestly for me. I noticed that while the rest spoke much of the war and the danger about us she said little of these things. For the future she seemed to have no fear, except her fear for me. Why was this? I was not openly wicked. I was not profane, and yet I was sure my sister had a faith, a peace, a happiness even in our distressing circ.u.mstances that I did not possess.

It was at that moment that a great cras.h.i.+ng noise fell upon my ears. A sh.e.l.l burst almost at the feet of a man who had been walking but a few yards in front of me. Through the great cloud of dust raised I saw him fall; I heard him shriek out a prayer to G.o.d for mercy upon him; and then a few moments later he was dead.

For almost a year I had been familiar with the sight of many wounded and dead. I had known of many being thus suddenly taken off; and yet my own need of preparation never came home to me as at that moment.

Had I been a few yards further ahead all would have been over with me.

Then my sister's words came back with double meaning.

That night, in the quiet of my small room, I poured out my soul to G.o.d in prayer for forgiveness. I made up my mind that whether we finally resolved upon going to England, to Canada, or to Nova Scotia, I would go not in my own strength, but in the strength of G.o.d and in dependence upon Christ as my Saviour.

My decision was not made any too soon. The next morning showed that during the night the Americans had strongly fortified themselves on the heights much nearer the city than ever before. Seeing this, a council of war was held by the British officers, and it was decided that Boston must be given up at once.

The following night the whole army, with eleven hundred Loyalists like ourselves, were hurried on board the King's s.h.i.+ps that lay in the harbour, and by the time the sun rose we were well down the bay, with our vessels headed for the new land in the north called Nova Scotia.

Chapter IX

In the 'True North'

As the vessels drew away from Boston I was surprised to hear not a single expression of regret. On all of the forty or more vessels there were crowded, in addition to the soldiers, over a thousand men and women who were leaving the land of their birth for a country that was new, strange, and practically unknown. Behind them, on the slopes that rose from the city, through the lifting mist of the morning, many could distinguish the outlines of the farms they had cleared by long and patient toil. The white of their comfortable homes stood out sharply against the grey ground about them and the green forest behind. In the making of these clearings and homes, men and women had grown old; neither the suns of summer nor the storms of winter had turned them aside from their great purpose of living honestly, of pa.s.sing the result of years of toil on to their children, and then lying down to sleep in the hillside cemeteries with their fathers.

But the plans slowly being matured through the years had been rudely broken in upon. War had come. And now, though they might have remained; though history afforded, as Duncan Hale affirmed, no parallel for their action in leaving as they did; though no sword had been lifted up to drive them hence; though no law but the law of their own consciences bound them, they were sailing away. And while they looked back with interest, I could not see on the many faces about me a single evidence of pain at the going. Many of the men were old, and must begin in the new land, where they had begun here fifty years ago; but, as was fitting in the pioneers of a new way for many thousands of their countrymen who were to follow them during the war and after its close, they looked back that day upon the receding sh.o.r.es of Ma.s.sachusetts without regrets, and when the homes and farms could no longer be seen on the grey, cold slopes, they turned dry eyes and resolute faces to the sea and the pure March north wind. If the country to which they went would be new, the flag, at least, would be the old one.

As soon as we were well away from Boston, a feeling of buoyancy possessed us. The sun shone brilliantly; this, together with the wide stretch of sparkling sea about us, the shouting from s.h.i.+p to s.h.i.+p, the feeling of freedom after so many weary months of restraint in the besieged city, all tended to render us unexpectedly happy. Social distinctions vanished. One in our loyalty, we resolved to be one in everything. My mother moved about among the farmer women from the country, and at times talked even gaily with them. Elizabeth romped the decks with children of her age from the hillsides, while Duncan Hale and Doctor Canfield, both of whom were on our s.h.i.+p, discussed plans for the future with the men.

On the afternoon of the third day after sailing we entered Halifax harbour. I was standing by Duncan Hale.